How to Monetize YouTube Content

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So far we’ve covered some best practices to keep in mind when creating content on YouTube and how to get your videos discovered. Now let’s take a look at how you can get a return for all of your hard work. You can work with YouTube’s built-in monetization program to turn all that work into cold, hard cash.

As a reminder, you will only be able to monetize through YouTube if the content adheres to the advertiser-friendly guidelines. YouTube automatically checks your videos to see if it contains any content that doesn’t follow the guidelines.

The Different Types of Monetization with YouTube:

1. Display Ads are the most common way channels earn money on YouTube. These are the preroll skippable and nonskippable ads, midroll ads, and overlay ads.

2. YouTube Premium is a service from YouTube that allows a user to pay a fee to consumer YouTube content, ad free. If a YouTube Premium member watches your content, YouTube will still reward the creator, allocated by a percentage of watch time and views.

3. Super Chat Donations are monetary gifts from viewers to your channel during your channel’s live streams. In order to enable Super Chat, you must have an eligible channel.

4. Selling Merchandise is a relatively new way for creators to monetize on YouTube. Trusted creators are allowed to advertise their merchandise directly below their videos. Learn more.

Different Ways to Monetize on YouTube but without YouTube’s involvement:

1. Crowdfunding is a way for creators to get rewarded as well. This may be a great option for creators with only a few (but passionate) subscribers. For example, news-based content on YouTube is often not advertiser-friendly due to the nature of news topics, so many news content creators set up Patreon accounts where their fans can donate on a monthly basis.

2. Affiliate marketing is certainly a method used by creators to monetize their content. You’ll notice this very quickly when looking at cooking channels like Souv Vide Everything.

3. Paid sponsorships and branded content such as product placements, endorsements, or partnering with a brand to create a specific video may help you earn some extra cash but be careful as most of the YouTube audience doesn’t like being advertised to in this way. Keep in mind that YouTube audiences crave authenticity and relationship with the creator above all else. Make sure any paid sponsorship you accept won’t jeopardize the trust you have with your fans.

By now, you should have a good idea on how to maximize your returns on your video efforts. Making money off of YouTube content can be difficult and requires consistent, engaging, ad-friendly content. Make friends with the algorithm but don’t let it consume you! YouTuber burnout is a very common thing.

Some Legal Issue to Keep in Mind

You’ll need to make sure you have secured the rights to the materials in your videos. YouTube’s copyright detection is on point and three copyright strikes against your channel means YouTube can shut you down. Be smart and make sure your content doesn’t violate any laws. Learn what it means to get a copyright strike or a Content ID claim and figure out what to do next.

This concludes my three part series on YouTube! I hope you’ve found it helpful and I wish you the best of luck with your YouTube content!